MAYOR MICHAEL R. BLOOMBERG APPOINTS SHAUN DONOVAN COMMISSIONER OF THE DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING PRESERVATION AND DEVELOPMENT

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg today announced the appointment of Shaun Donovan as Commissioner of the Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD). Commissioner Donovan replaces Jerilyn Perine, who has been in City Government for 26 years and served as Commissioner of HPD since September 2000.

"Shaun Donovan will be an excellent Commissioner of HPD," said Mayor Bloomberg. "He has both private and public sector experience and has worked on the problem of affordable housing from government, academia, the non-profit world and the private sector. We are fortunate to have an individual with Shaun's energy, commitment and expertise lead HPD as they continue on the most ambitious and aggressive affordable housing program in the last twenty years."

"It is a great honor to join the Bloomberg Administration," said Commissioner Donovan. "As a lifelong New Yorker and an advocate for affordable housing, to bring these two together is a tremendous fulfillment of my life's passion. I want to thank Mayor Bloomberg for giving me this opportunity and also say a word of thanks to Jerilyn Perine who has done an outstanding job running HPD for the last three and a half years. I look forward to working with the exceptional public servants at HPD."

Commissioner Donovan joins the Administration from Prudential Mortgage Capital Company where he was the Managing Director overseeing $1.5 billion of debt and equity investments in federal, state and local subsidized affordable housing and President and CEO of one of the nations largest Federal Housing Administration lenders. Before Prudential Commissioner Donovan was a visiting scholar at New York University where he studied Federally assisted and Mitchell Lama housing in New York City. He has held a number of positions at the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development including Acting Federal Housing Commissioner and Deputy Assistant Secretary for Multifamily Housing. Commissioner Donovan earned an MPA from the Kennedy School of Government, a Masters in Architecture from Harvard Graduate School of Design, and a BA from Harvard University. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife Liza Gilbert, a landscape architect and two boys, Milo age four and Lucas age two.

The New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) is the largest municipal developer of affordable housing in the nation. Since 1987, HPD has provided over $5.6 billion to support the repair, rehabilitation and new construction of hundreds of thousands of units of housing. In December of 2002, Mayor Bloomberg announced the most ambitious affordable housing plan in nearly two decades. The Mayor's plan will create and preserve 65,000 units of housing over the next five years. To date, 10,197 units are already in the development pipeline with 8,549 and 11,738 units projected in the second and third years.